"I like these buses," said Ross, a Flint resident sitting outside of the Mass Transportation Authority Transit Center in downtown Flint. "And as long as they don't raise the fare again, I'll be fine."

The MTA is taking an extra step to extend the life of its fleet, refurbishing 36 of its 1996 New Flyer LF 40 buses. The initiative is part of an ongoing effort to reduce costs that would be associated with new purchases.

"The national standard in the United States for replacing vehicles is 12 years (or 500,000 miles) for transit coaches and we realize at 12 years there is still a lot of useful life in the vehicles," said Ed Benning, MTA general manager.

Refurbishing the buses involves pulling all of the interior windows, seats and exterior body panels to evaluate what steel parts need to be replaced.

MidWest Bus in Owosso has been contracted to do the work. The company created a fixture with adjustments to repeat the process on all of the buses.

The fixture duplicates the piece of the bus that is removed and allows the new steel to be set into place and welded.

New body panels are also installed, primed and painted.

The entire process takes four to five weeks. MTA officials say it extends the vehicle's life by six to eight years. Six buses have already gone through the process.

Refurbishing and extending the life of the buses has allowed the MTA to allocate money to expanding infrastructure for future operations, Benning said.

The MTA's fleet has logged between 26,000 and 700,000 miles.

However, replacing one transit vehicle could cost about $500,000 or $650,000 for a more fuel-efficient hybrid model.

It's costing the MTA about $55,000 per to refurbish one bus.

"It's not a brand-New bus, but it sure looks nice," Benning said.

Flint resident Sam Dixon thinks the work would have to be extensive with the life of some of the buses.

"How long have these been in service, it's been quite a while now," he said. "They've got a lot of repair work to do. A lot of them have been rained on.

"I think they are pushing it now, but if they have to, they have to. I gotta get to where I gotta go."

Ross, however, is glad the older busses are sticking around, admitting she doesn't care for the MTA's new fuel-efficient hydrogen fuel cell buses that were unveiled in May.

"I don't really like the new bus they have," she said. "It's kind of slow."